ARKHANGELSK, September 25. /TASS Correspondent Irina Skalina/. The Cape Zhelaniya. Edge of the Earth travel film about the northern tip of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago will be created in Arkhangelsk. The archipelago is a very hard-to-reach area, so the crew had to work on the film for three years. The film will be also an educational project, Director Anastasia Lomakina told TASS.
"This is a travel film where we will present this unique, very inaccessible and very scenic territory, like is the Novaya Zemlya archipelago's Severny Island, its northernmost part, Cape Zhelaniya ('Desire' in Russian) - a cape that makes desires come true, and both Willem Barents, the Pomors, and modern researchers have desired to reach it," the film director said. "Over three expeditions of the Arctic Floating University, we visited Cape Zhelaniya and each time we filmed a little bit, so that we in future to put everything together."
It will be a film for those who enjoy traveling, for those interested in the Russian Arctic, its history and development. Cape Zhelaniya divides the Barents Sea from the Kara Seas, and this border line may be seen even in the water color, she continued. The name used for Novaya Zemlya's northernmost cape, according to her, is rather a mistranslation from Dutch, as the Barents expedition of 1596-97 named it "Cape Desirable", that is, which they wanted to reach. The Pomors have used a similar name, meaning, the place they had reached, and further on was the Kara Sea - unfavorable for navigation and fishing due to the ice.
This is a hard-to-reach area, it's not easy to go ashore there, and the project's team had to travel there a few times. The film features three presenters, and they had to be filmed on Cape Zhelaniya. "Every time we were trying to reach Cape Zhelaniya, we faced various obstacles, it has never been easy. Either we could not go ashore on a certain day, or the weather did not allow, or some events made us return," the director said. "Since we were acting as guides and presenters, we had to look the same, which is very difficult to do in the course of three years. As for clothes, we could more or less choose the same outfits, but it was much more complicated about, for example, hair, its length or color, that was more difficult, so 'bloopers' are quite possible.
The northernmost lighthouse, monument to Lenin, and 'life in stone'
This territory is a miniature presentation of Novaya Zemlya's north. Russia's northernmost lighthouse is located there - it is made of wood and still serves leading ships in the Arctic Ocean. Buildings of a hydrometeorology station, founded in 1931, have preserved at the cape. In the mid-1980s, about 30 people lived and worked at the station, and in 1997, after a fire, the facility was mothballed, and nowadays an automatic weather station operates there.
The station's main attraction in the 1930s was a monument to Lenin - the northernmost monument to the leader of proletariat. There are almost no photographs of the monument, but it has been captured from all sides by famous artist and writer Stepan Pisakhov. In the early 1950s, the bust disappeared. People were searching for it all over the station and on the steamer that was taking polar explorers to Arkhangelsk. Finally, the sculpture was found in a boat - a sailor had taken the bust for unclear reason. Nowadays, only the foundation remains at Cape Zhelaniya.
Cape Zhelaniya hosts the base of the Russian Arctic National Park. "This is a very interesting place for research. There are monitoring sites to study marine debris - both on the side of the Barents Sea and on the side of the Kara Sea. Ornithologists conduct bird banding and study species diversity at Cape Zhelaniya. Experts analyze historical and cultural heritage of the Arctic. We have made a dendrochronology of objects located there," Anna Trofimova told TASS. She is the Arctic Floating University's deputy leader for scientific work. "And in 2017, endoliths were found there - a kind of 'life in stone.' They are of particular interest to scientists."
Cape Zhelaniya is also home to a northernmost fortification in the Arctic. Defensive fortifications - bunkers, pillboxes, firing positions - about 60 of them- encircle the cape. They appeared after August 25, 1942, when a German submarine approached the Cape Zhelaniya weather station and opened fire. The enemy destroyed the weather station, the library, and the archive of meteorological observations was burned down. Polar explorers managed to escape. They built a cape defense network. "This is a landmark place of the Great Patriotic War, and we must remember events in the Soviet Arctic," the expedition's scientific leader added.
The film will feature materials about the archipelago's flora and fauna, for example, about how polar bears come there in the summer, and that polar poppies are turning after the sun to catch solar energy. "I think the project will be interesting for both school and university students. It may be shown at geography and regional studies classes, for example, since we are talking about an amazing place in the Arkhangelsk Region, which only few may visit, because it is very far away," the film director said in conclusion.
Work on the film is supported by the Arctic Development Project Office.